Classics Club Spin: The House of Mirth

I can only imagine how the publication of The House of Mirth must have struck the literary world of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia in 1905, a bit like a tsunami, perhaps. The novel was a huge bestseller, but who read it, and how did the upper-tier of society in the Northeast react to it?

I see the novel as totally exposing the super-wealthy elite of Newport and New York and Boston and Philadelphia, leaving them so open to the criticism that they so richly deserved. I would be very interested in reading every review of Wharton's novel in every major newspaper in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The intellectual class, the upper-middle-class, populating the professions including the law, journalism, and academia, must have had a field day with the novel, and the way in which Wharton exposed the shallowness and pettiness of the elite who had "old money" supporting them, with the "new-moneyed" class trying to nudge their way into their midst.

I can't help but see the novel in its historical context. This is partly due to my family history, which I'm not sure this entry has space for.
Laying that aside, which I scarcely can, I empathize with Lily Bart who, after the untimely death of her mother, never had a single person in her family to act as a sheltering mentor. Oh, yes, Mrs. Peniston reluctantly gave Lily a room in her home, but no woman relative took her under her wing when she was a teen or in her early twenties to give guidance, to love her, to nurture her, to question her actions as she emerged as a debutante to navigate the river rapids of the society she was dealing with, which is what all the other young woman had. This lack of a strong family behind her was really the key to her undoing, in my view.

The other aspect that paralyzed Lily's ability to secure her future was her inability to commit to anyone. The minute that affairs seemed to drift toward closure and securing her position as a wife, she flew. Over and over again. For some reason, she felt safest on her own, independent and admired by everyone. This, for a time, kept her on the pedestal she believed she could manage.

The House of Mirth is an absolutely brilliant work of art, in my opinion. It deserves a much, much, much higher place in American literature than it has been given. There are a virtually endless aspects of discussion that it provides to the reader.